


Rationalizations and Cherry Slushees

by cat_77



Category: Fringe
Genre: Gen, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-01-23
Updated: 2011-01-23
Packaged: 2017-10-15 00:37:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 950
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/155255
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cat_77/pseuds/cat_77
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They each must come to terms in their own way.  [Spoilers for 3.08]</p>
            </blockquote>





	Rationalizations and Cherry Slushees

Astrid walked in balancing three coffees and a cherry slushee in a holder not originally designed for the larger drink. After a quick look around, she offered Walter the rapidly melting creation and asked, “Where’s Peter?”

“Using the lavatory,” he replied. He took a slurp of the sugary creation and hummed, more to himself than to her, “The lavatory in the laboratory! There should be a song. Maybe there already is one.”

Astrid made a face and set down the rest of the drinks. “He wasn’t looking too good before I left, are you sure he’s okay?” She made another face and amended, “Are you sure he’s even still there?”

Walter nodded and went back to his experiment, which was nearly the identical shade of neon red as his treat. “He is still vomiting profusely. I believe you call it ‘hurling,’” he advised.

“Walter!” Astrid gasped in surprise. “Is he ill? Do we need to call a doctor?” She made to move towards her phone, but was still watching him as he shook his head.

“No, no, he’s fine and I’m a doctor so I should know,” Walter assured her. He then paused slightly as his thoughts caught up to him. “Well, not fine, per se, and I’m not really that kind of doctor, but the point is that he needs to work through this on his own.”

“Work through what? Food poisoning?” she asked, aghast.

He shook his head. “No, nothing so mundane, though I would recommend you stay away from Sal’s Sandwiches for a while as I caught a glimpse of their kitchen through the back door during that last case and the body wasn’t the only thing with unexplained and interesting science going on if you know what I mean,” he told her.

He blinked and tried to refocus on the subject at hand, which was his son, well, his alternate’s son that he saved and raised and who chose to be with him so he was considering him his son and his mind was wandering again so he blinked again and said, “He’s grieving, Astro.”

“Astrid,” she automatically corrected. “And why is he grieving and why does it involve...?”

“Profuse vomiting?” he finished for her when she trailed off. At her nod, he explained, “Extreme emotions can produce the most interesting of chemical reactions in the brain and therefore body which can lead to stressors or the appearance of stressors. It can also lead to other reactions which can be far more pleasurable and often simulate those of certain chemical compounds I am no longer allowed to have here in the lab.”

“And the reason for these emotions?” she prompted as he sipped at his slushee once more.

A pocket of air in the straw made a loud hollow noise and reminded him to answer. “He formed an emotional bond with Olivia and, though she may have been false, the bond was not. He now must question that bond and the emotions that went along with it, as well as probable physical responses to such emotions.” He looked at the slick syrup sinking through the ice to pool at the bottom. “He might not be liking what he is discovering.”

“But will he be okay?” she asked, sparing a glance towards where Peter coughed again.

“He must question which Olivia he bonded with, which Olivia he knew and loved and was drawn to, and which Olivia he can make his peace with. It will not be an easy task for him, I am sure,” Walter replied.

There was a moment of silence as they both processed that, Walter watching the red eat through the ice that was melting with the heat of the room, and Astrid lightly rolling her coffee cup back and forth in her hands, the steam escaping through the little opening at the top. The computer beside him beeped and drew him out of his thoughts and back to the experiment he had been in the middle of when she walked in. “Hand me those forceps, please? It’s time to turn the tumor.”

She handed him the tool as requested and leaned against the counter while he worked. After a moment, she took a sip of her coffee and said, “So apparently I was an emotionless killing machine responsible for the deaths of thousands in the other universe.”

“It was more of a locking them in an amber-like fluid than outright genocide from what I heard,” he reassured her, checking the position and returning the forceps to the side table.

She pursed her lips as she mulled that over and he suspected it was more than his son who needed to make peace with things on the other side. He watched as she sipped at her coffee for a while until she evidently set that aside to deal with later and instead commented, “I bet the Walternate never had a Gene.”

Walter huffed out a chuckle at that and agreed, “No, I would assume not.” He could not help but grin though, knowing that amongst all the chaos wrought from the convergence of the two universes, at least some things would remain resolutely the same. He could think of explanations and rationalizations for it all but, in the end, it came down to just who a person was once you stripped down the exterior and left them with nothing to hide. Who they were, who they truly were, would be exposed and you would learn just where you stood in the grand scheme of things.

Well, at least that was his theory, though he felt it was a fairly sound one if he said so himself.

In her stall, Gene mooed in agreement.


End file.
